Carmel Magazine

(Clockwise from top left) Haber shakes hands with frequent Quail guest Arnold Palmer; plays a round with longtime Quail Lodge President Lawson Little; accepts the Mobil 5-Star Award; and shares a laugh with singer Tony Bennett with wife Terry. 124 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 4 enterprise then started a classified ad publica- tion, printed on a mimeograph machine. Haber set foot in Carmel Valley in 1947, at first with the idea of expanding his publishing business. Soon, in addition to his newspaper, he owned a liquor store and movie theater and sold title insurance. That led to investing in real estate and he became adept at buying low and selling a little higher. Eventually, a dairy farm situ- ated along the Carmel River caught his eye. While knocking around post-Great Depression San Francisco as a lad of 17, Haber was inadvertently introduced to the game of golf. A guy invited him to play, but "I told him I thought it was a sissy game," Koeppel quotes him. "I watched him hitting some balls on what he called a 'practice range,' which looked easy to me, so I borrowed one of his clubs, took a swing and missed it. Then I was hooked." That missed swing became the touching off point for a lifetime love affair with the game of golf. Three years after that whiff, he won the 1933 San Francisco Amateur Golf Champion- ship at Harding Park Municipal Golf Club. Haber's godmother lived in Carmel, and being essentially jobless during the Depression, he vis- ited her often. Unthinkable today (and probably impossible), the young man would sneak onto Pebble Beach golf courses to play a few holes— mostly on weekdays. "Pebble Beach didn't care so much about getting paid on weekdays as they did on weekends when everyone wanted to golf," he said. Photos: Courtesy of Quail Lodge

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